


Learning Peace

by feathers_and_cigarettes



Series: Secret Avengers 'Verse [4]
Category: Marvel (Comics), Venom (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Domestic Fluff, Eddie Brock deserves love, Fluff, Other, Post-Canon Fix-It, Self Care, Slice of Life, big brother Eddie Brock, symbrock, tub sharing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-19 07:10:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17596757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feathers_and_cigarettes/pseuds/feathers_and_cigarettes
Summary: Post Donny Cates' 2018 run, Knull is gone, the Maker is gone, the symbiote is whole and recovering. Eddie and his Other are learning what peace feels like.





	Learning Peace

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pherryt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pherryt/gifts).



> For @pherryt, who requested more tub sharing fics. Not beta'ed. The only good things from Cates' run so far are Eddie's beard, Dylan, and the symbiote telling Eddie it loves him, so those things are staying and that's it.

“Okay. Yeah. Definitely overdid it.”

The symbiote sighed heavily in Eddie’s mind. _“One day you will listen to us, Eddie.”_

“Sorry, love,” Eddie apologized, wincing as he attempted to roll his shoulders and kicked the apartment door shut behind them. “We didn’t expect the fight to get that crazy.”

The symbiote still covered them as a second skin, its heat providing some small relief to the ache in their muscles. It hadn’t recovered enough yet from their battle with Knull to heal all their aches and pains and it had spent most of its energy repairing the cartilage in their knee after the local mob boss had smashed it in with a hammer.

“You look like shit.”

Eddie squeezed his eyes shut for a moment before glaring at his brother, who lounged on the futon in front of the television. “Occupational hazard,” he replied snippily.

Dylan’s eyes didn’t leave the tv, his fingers tapping away at the video game controller. “If you shaved you wouldn’t look like a lumberjack at least.”

_“We like the beard, Eddie.”_

Shoving Dylan’s feet off the coffee table with a pointed glare, Eddie picked his way past his brother and down the hallway, flipping him off as he went.

Taking Dylan in had brought a lot of changes in a relatively short period of time, the biggest being their need for reliable income. Who knew teenagers could be so expensive? Their new apartment wasn’t fancy – a small two bedroom above the pub where Eddie had picked up a job as a bartender – but it suited their small family well enough. Dylan pulled his weight with the finances as well, bagging groceries after school and doing odd jobs he found on Craigslist.

Venom still watched over San Fransisco, albeit not quite as aggressively as they used to. The symbiote would take time to fully recover from the trauma of being separated from The Hive, but it seemed to be content with their new, more domestic life.

 _“We have had enough tragedy and pain in our life, Eddie,”_ the symbiote mused, picking up on Eddie’s wandering thoughts. _“Do we not deserve peace as well?”_

“We do, love. Just takes some getting used to.” Retirement, if one could call it such, was a strange concept for Eddie Brock.

The symbiote shut and locked the washroom door behind them and turned on the bathtub faucet as Eddie stripped out of his boxers. Its head materialized to nuzzle at Eddie’s beard, tongue flicking gently at his neck in its approximation of a human kiss.

Eddie sighed, running his fingertips along the symbiote’s smooth skin. He needed the physical contact just as much as their psychic link these days, needed to see and feel proof that it was still with him, not burned to ash or stuck as an animal.

Warmth and _love_ flowed through their bond, soothing the frayed edges that still hadn’t healed in Eddie’s mind. Gently, the symbiote urged Eddie toward the bathtub and laced itself through his fingers, a subsonic purr emanating from it that echoed through their brain and reverberated through their nerves.

“We are here, Eddie,” the symbiote murmured against Eddie’s throat. “We cannot control the future but we can control what happens now, beloved.”

“Yeah? What happens now?”

The faucet turned off and Eddie groaned as the symbiote pressed him down into the water. It was almost too hot for his Other’s taste but the heat was pure bliss as it surrounded Eddie’s aching body. Steam billowed around them, making his head swim for a moment as he just let himself _feel._

Tiny but impossibly strong tendrils trailed across Eddie’s shoulderblades, finding the knotted areas of muscle and kneading rhythmically.

“Now we relax.”

Eddie sank back into the water with a quiet moan of pleasure, shuffling his feet against the far wall as he shifted his bulk. They should have splurged for the bigger tub, but Dylan and the symbiote had teamed up against him and their first real luxury purchase had ended up being the Xbox.

Snaking its head around Eddie’s neck, the symbiote left tiny licks in its wake and pressed sharp teeth against his nape. Its purr continued as it massaged tight muscles, sharing Eddie’s pleasure and looping its own back through their bond.

Eddie had _missed_ this, the constant hum of love and devotion in their shared consciousness, the small little quirks that made his Other who it was and what made Eddie love it so much. He let his head fall back in pleasure, pressing his lips just above the symbiote’s right eye. He let his emotions express what his words couldn’t begin to say, what his actions didn’t scratch the surface of.

“Love you, Eddie,” the symbiote murmured, it’s quiet voice sending a shiver along Eddie’s spine with the force of the feelings that ran underneath them. “You deserve everything and more.”

Eddie’s eyes drooped as the tension left him, dopamine and phenethylamine and other chemicals he was too tired to identify flowing through his mind. The knot under his shoulderblade that had been plaguing him all week finally evaporating under his Other’s ministrations.

“ _We_ deserve everything,” he mumbled against the symbiote’s skin as its head nuzzled his cheek. “I’m nothing without you, love.”

“No, Eddie. You saved us, time and again. You saved Dylan, stood up to your father, to the Maker, to Knull Himself. You are a hero.”

“You make me want to be one,” Eddie said quietly.

The purr intensified, sending sparks of pleasure and contentment radiating through their body. “We like having a family,” the symbiote commented after a long moment of just savouring each other’s presence.

“Yes, love.”

“But please do not listen to Dylan,” it continued. “We like the beard, even if it does make us look like a ‘lumberjack.’”

Eddie let out a bark of laughter and rubbed his face against his Other’s. “There are worse things we could look like. Dylan can deal with having a not-cool big brother.”

Warm water splashed over Eddie’s head as the symbiote looped a second tendril around the bottle of shampoo. “How can we be cool?” it mused as it worked the shampoo into Eddie’s hair, massaging his scalp lightly.

“Oh we are definitely cool, my love,” Eddie grinned lazily. “We are Venom, after all.”


End file.
